« to surround his fortified royal residence and its mercantile and ecclesiastical satellites with a ring of close friends and supporters, bound to him and his heirs by feudal obligation and capable of rendering him military service of the most up-to-date kind and filling administrative offices at the highest level. »

^Bartlett, The Making of Europe, pp. 24-59; Moore, The First European Revolution, c.970–1215, p. 30ff; see also Barrow, "The Balance of New and Old", passim, esp. 9; this idea of "Europe" seems in practice to mean "Western Europe".

Barrow, G. W. S., "David I of Scotland: The Balance of New and Old", in G. W. S. Barrow (ed.), Scotland and Its Neighbours in the Middle Ages, (London, 1992), pp. 45–65, originally published as the 1984 Stenton Lecture, (Reading, 1985)

Blanchard, Ian., "Lothian and Beyond: The Economy of the ‘English Empire’ of David I", in Richard Britnell and John Hatcher (eds.), Progress and Problems in Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Edward Miller, (Cambridge, 1996)

Boardman, Steve, "Late Medieval Scotland and the Matter of Britain", in Edward J. Cowan and Richard J. Finlay (eds.), Scottish History: The Power of the Past, (Edinburgh, 2002), pp. 47–72